TakeControl APAC: Empowering Finance Transformation Through AI

In 2025, FloQast’s flagship TakeControl event series included discussion sessions in Melbourne, Sydney, and Singapore. The sessions brought together finance and accounting leaders from across APAC and the world to explore a shared challenge: how can finance teams build resilient, scalable, and future-ready operations in the face of rapid change and accelerating AI adoption?

TakeControl APAC Series Speakers

• Singapore
  • Sorcha Quinn – Financial Controller, Employment Hero
  • Ghamazy Rashid – Accounting Advisory Partner, Deloitte Southeast Asia
• Melbourne
  • Penelope Veenker – Australian Financial Controller, PEXA
  • Paddy McEvoy – Director, PWC Australia
• Sydney
  • Omar Ibrahim – Head of Finance, Hanes Brands Australasia
  • Brian Cameron – Director, CFO Advisory, Deloitte Australia

Each discussion was framed around three specific topics: how to optimise the impact of AI during transformation, how AI can help automate accounting workflows to unlock efficiency, and ultimately how AI can elevate the role of accountants, and make their lives easier. 

Key Takeaways

If there is one thing we learned from our tour across APAC, it’s that the finance function isn't just changing, it’s upgrading. Here is the cheat sheet for building a future-ready finance team:

• AI is a Strategy, Not a Band-Aid: Successful transformation requires a deliberate plan. Identify your pain points, map out your workflows, and integrate AI where it actually solves a problem, rather than just for the sake of looking modern.
• Automation is the Foundation of Agility: By automating the heavy lifting—reconciliations, transaction matching, and close checklists—you create a finance function that is resilient, accurate, and incredibly fast.
• The Human Element is Critical: The ultimate ROI of AI is a happier, more strategic finance team. When you remove the drudgery of manual inputs, you empower your accountants to become the business advisors they were trained to be.
• FloQast is Your Partner in Change: Whether it’s speeding up the close or automating compliance, FloQast’s AI Agents are built to handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on the big picture.

Optimising the Impact of AI in Accounting

The integration of AI within workflows has evolved faster than many businesses anticipated. No longer a tech buzzword, AI has become ubiquitous, and the challenge now lies in knowing where to start the integration process. If you’re planning an accounting transformation, the earlier you make decisions about your AI implementation, the more you’ll be able to optimise its impact.  

Start with clarity - Paddy McEvoy

Speaking from his experience with PWC Australia, Paddy McEvoy urged finance leaders to start with clarity — on the strategic vision of their transformation, the benefits case for it, and the roadmap. 

From there, Paddy highlighted the importance of identifying the “value” phases of the transformation journey as a way to reinforce momentum. Crucially, he noted that AI shouldn’t be sidelined, but be deliberately embedded into the transformation process, supporting implementation tasks and strengthening documentation.

Quick wins - Ghamazy Rashid

Setting out Deloitte’s perspective working with a huge range of clients, Ghamazy emphasised the importance of “quick wins” for AI during a transformation. In other words, by finding ways to integrate AI successfully early in the transformation, finance leaders can help employees see and feel the positive impact of the tech sooner — and that momentum can help push them through to the end of the process. 

Ghamazy advised finance leaders to examine their transformation processes for areas that involve multiple pain points or repetitive processes, since these are the areas where AI is likely to deliver the greatest impact and, consequently, generate the most enthusiasm.

Team involvement - Sorcha Quinn 

Describing Employment Hero’s journey with FloQast, Sorcha pointed to the value of internal knowledge in helping define the objectives of the transformation process. 

She noted that Employment Hero engaged its finance team early in its transformation and quickly realised the benefit of focussing on its resource-intensive month-end close. Team members were able to help company leadership understand where time was being spent during the close, where the significant pain points were, and which AI solutions would be most effective in helping boost efficiency. 

That early-stage team involvement helped maximise the impact of the FloQast implementation, including the integration of AI-powered bank transaction matching and generative AI (GenAI) co-pilot tools. 

Recognise pain points - Omar Ibrahim

Omar Ibrahim revealed that Hanes’ transformation journey began with an assessment of finance pain points. In his team’s case, those pain points included heavy manual work and spreadsheet dependency, both of which were slowing the close, complicating tasks, and limiting visibility for the company’s 40-person-onshore-and-offshore finance function. 

The assessment helped Omar build a clear business case for the transformation project. The business case served as a foundation for small, practical improvements before an expansion to more complex automation steps, which included the integration of AI tools. 

Key Points: Optimising the Impact of AI in Accounting

• Don’t Just Wing It: Start with a clear roadmap and strategic vision. AI shouldn’t be a side dish; it needs to be a main ingredient baked into your transformation process from day one.
• Listen to the Front Lines: Your team knows where the bottlenecks actually are. Leverage their internal knowledge to identify the real resource drains—like the month-end close—rather than guessing from the top down.
• Chase the Quick Wins: Momentum is everything. Target high-pain, repetitive areas first to demonstrate immediate value and generate enthusiasm before tackling the massive, complex overhauls.

Unlocking AI Automation Potential

AI automation can feel like a one-way ticket to accounting speed and efficiency, but it’s not always straightforward. To optimise the impact of AI on accounting, teams need to know when and where to deploy their tools. 

Understanding workflows - Sorcha Quinn

For Sorcha, maximising the speed and scope of implementation is key to unlocking value. To that end, Employment Hero moved quickly to automate as much of its accounting workflow as possible, integrating many of FloQast’s AI  transaction matching, balance sheet, and reconciliations tools. 

On top of the immediate efficiency impact, Sorcha noted that many new AI solutions were emerging internally from the finance team itself, with accountants using ChatGPT, for example, to write SQL code. Her team is keen to maintain that level of momentum by exploring ways to expand AI matching techniques to other monthly workflows, applying guardrails carefully to ensure tools are integrated safely. 

Reconciliations applications - Ghamazy Rashid

Ghamazy highlighted reconciliations and the manual matching of transactions as one of the most valuable applications of AI and automation. He noted that, for high-volume accounts, finance teams in fast-growing companies often spend hours manually matching transactions. Automating these processes offers immediate impact, reducing the manual burden on employees, improving accuracy, and allowing teams to focus on more strategic activities.

For high-risk accounts, including key customer and bank accounts, Ghamazy noted that automation ensures reconciliations are completed consistently and quickly, minimising the risk of costly human error.

Year-end processes also benefit significantly from automation. By standardising and accelerating these once-a-year activities, which are often complicated by tight deadlines and evolving disclosure requirements, finance teams can streamline reporting while reducing stress and potential mistakes.

Operational focus - Brian Cameron

In Sydney, Brian Cameron highlighted that the most forward-thinking CFOs focus their early automation efforts on areas with operational leverage. He explained that many organisations begin with transaction processing, where automation delivers swift accuracy and efficiency gains. From there, finance leaders often target the financial close and reporting cycles, where structured workflows and repeatable tasks make automation more impactful. 

Brian noted growing momentum to automate financial data integration and analysis, enabling teams to connect disparate systems and surface insights faster. He pointed to compliance and risk management as another valuable opportunity, with automation helping organisations maintain robust controls and reduce the likelihood of costly errors.

Streamlining key processes - Penelope Veenker

Penelope Veenker described the way her team rapidly expanded its automation goals to streamline month-end. She targeted the automation of key processes such as checklist rollovers, GL and reconciliation files, and set up prepayment schedules for a more consistent close. 

According to Penelope, the team is currently exploring the use of FloQast’s AI capabilities to further enhance close accuracy and speed, including automating bank reconciliations and generating journals directly in the FloQast platform. The team has also focused on automating trial balance imports and chart of accounts updates. 

The transformation has helped PEXA complete reconciliations within its four-day close window and ensured managers have time to review before finalising results on workday five.

Key Points: Unlocking AI Automation Potential

• Speed is Safety: Automating high-volume transaction matching and reconciliations isn't just about going faster; it stops costly human errors in their tracks, especially for high-risk accounts.
• Start with Operational Leverage: Focus your early automation efforts on transaction processing and month-end workflows where structured, repeatable tasks make AI a no-brainer.
• Let the Team Tinker: Innovation often comes from the desk, not the boardroom. Encourage your finance team to find their own AI solutions—like using ChatGPT for SQL coding—to keep the efficiency gains rolling.

Elevating Accountants in the Age of AI

Finance transformation isn’t just about integrating new tech, it’s also about the people who use it. That means looking beyond the technical capabilities of AI tools, to the positive effects for accountants, who can be freed from high-pressure, repetitive tasks and redirected to more value-adding projects.

To deliver on that promise for accountants, businesses need to have strong change-management guardrails in place to support adoption without any disruption to operations. 

Empowering teams - Paddy McEvoy

Paddy pointed out that by freeing up operational capacity through AI and automation, organisations create valuable opportunities for finance teams to engage in higher-value activities. 

In that context, rather than being bogged down by repetitive, manual tasks, accountants can support decision-making alongside business stakeholders, and participate in improvement initiatives that ultimately help reduce the overall cost of finance by enabling resources to be allocated more efficiently.

Accountant experiences - Sorcha Quinn

Sorcha championed the idea that AI integration should enhance accountants’ roles both in terms of productivity and the quality of the employee experience.

As an example, she pointed to Employment Hero’s analysis of its End of Month IT Spend. Prior to AI integration, company accountants had to perform multiple manual tasks, preparing documents, generating and re-generating reports, and updating their work. Following AI integration, Sorcha noted that workflow happens at the click of the “Refresh” button. 

Investment in the future - Ghamazy Rashid

Ghamazy echoed Sorcha’s take on the recruitment power of AI, reframing the “cost” of the technology as an investment — that pays off by helping companies attract and retain a higher calibre of accountant. 

He pointed out that the new generation of accountants are AI natives, and heavy users of GenAI-powered applications in the tech space. They bring with them an expectation that their employers will keep pace with that wave of innovation, and they may get restless if that’s not the case. 

Employee opportunities - Brian Cameron

Brian also suggested that the true value of AI and automation lies in the experience of employees. With repetitive tasks automated, finance leaders can reassign accountants to higher-value strategic work or offer skill development. Both approaches help organisations retain top talent and attract new candidates who want to work in modern, tech-driven environments. 

He emphasised that the benefits of automation depend on strong change management. Leaders must guide their teams through the transition, ensuring new tools are adopted without disrupting day-to-day operations.

Key Points: Empowering Accountants in the Age of AI

• The "Refresh" Button Lifestyle: The goal is to move from hours of manual report generation to a simple click of a button. It’s about improving the quality of life for your team as much as it is about productivity.
• Retention Through Tech: The next generation of accountants are digital natives. If you want to attract and keep top talent, you need to offer a tech stack that matches their expectations, not spreadsheets from the 90s.
• From Data Entry to Strategy: When you automate the grunt work, you don't just get time back—you get a strategic partner. Freeing up capacity allows your team to stop looking backward at the data and start advising on the future of the business.

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Integrate AI with FloQast

While the TakeControl series stretched across Asia, a common theme emerged from each session: modern finance teams aren’t just seeking better tools, they’re seeking better ways of working, including more structure and visibility, more automation, and more time to focus on meaningful analysis.

Those priorities are at the heart of effective finance transformation, and FloQast’s AI accounting tools are designed to support them from end to end. 

If you’re ready to transform your finance function with AI technology, we’re ready to guide you. Find out how FloQast AI Agents are helping clients scale and accelerate their accounting workflows, or get in touch with our team to request a demo.